Happy Birthday!

I turned 30 today. For such a sad occasion, we sure had a good time celebrating it!

We started the day with a yummy breakfast at Ihop. Its possible this should be a birthday breakfast tradition. Sophie at half of my breakfast and then some of Brian's pancakes.

Houston's Museum of Natural Science has a new dinosaur exhibit hall. Its hard to know what to expect, but I was really impressed with the collection of dinosaurs.

Then we went home for a Happy Birthday nap. It was lovely.

My birthday dinner was at... Outback Steakhouse! Somehow this restaurant slipped off our to-eat list and when we were talking about dinner options, I realized we hadn't eaten at Outback in two years! Something we remedied tonight... Brian and I had our orders ready before we got in the car to go to the restaurant. I would have a picture to show you of our wonderful food, but we were too busy enjoying it to take a picture.

The girls made cute cards and wished me "happy birthday" numerous times during the day.

It has been a really good day. I'm grateful and happy.

Even though I'm 30...

Coke Money

I've been saving all the cans from the coke that we drink for a couple of months now. My girls have been learning about taking care of the Earth and so this was my way of proving to them that I recycle and care about the Earth that they live on. Brian's been asking me to get them out of the garage, so today, I loaded them up in the back of the van.

When I pulled into the warehouse, I laughed at myself, thinking "they are gonna laugh at my little bags of cans." There was metal everywhere and a huge dumpster piled to the brim with aluminum cans.

I stopped the car and waited to go in to a little hallway with a desk. The man ahead of me finished and I entered. I expected to see a man behind the desk, but to my surprise, all I saw was me! Instead of seeing a person, I was looking into a mirrored glass. There was a small slot to put money and receipts through, a camera, and a speaker. There was also a sign saying that you had to have a photo id and to be fingerprinted to sell metal. The man must have seen the surprise/shock register on my face because he came out from the glass to tell me to pull ahead and have the cans weighed. He also said that unless I was selling copper, I was okay. "Aluminum cans are cool." No fingerprinting or carding for me.

When I opened the trunk, the man unloading snickered a little and asked: "Is this all you have?" I think it totaled up to about 12 pounds of cans. For which I was paid a grand total of $7.15.

Oh yeah. I took a picture.

Feelin' Bloggy

I'm lying here on my bed, all teenage-girl style. Laptop, on my stomach, feet kicked up behind me... I feel bloggy. I really should be trying to sneak in a snooze while the two littles are napping and the big ones are playing Legos. But my brain persists, so I'll unleash a little on the bloggy world and then maybe sleep for 5 minutes before Benjamin wakes up.

I think I would like to run. You know, like the Couch to 5K thing everyone talks about. I've never actually run, except when I was a kid and we played tag in the backyard. Or now, when Sophie bolts out into the street like a crazy person, then I run. But Actual Running seems like it would be good exercise and stress relieving. And I think I would like it. Well, I don't think I would like to run for the first 1500 tries or so. Those would be miserable. But even then, through the misery, I think I would like the quiet... the exercise... maybe I would lose a couple of pounds.

While I was washing dishes a few moments ago, I had a brilliant idea. No really, I did. I like to play games with friends, but I can't figure out how to do it if they have kids too. Its easy with just mine... I wait until bedtime, put them to bed and there ya go, peaceful game time. You know? BUT. If they have kids too... Then what? After dinner, kids are playing, adults play a game - ideal situation. Never works out. We tried it, a few weeks ago. We have four, they have four, our kids play together great. Except (and there is always an except), it was creeping up on bedtime and the littlest ones were getting cranky. Understandably so, its almost bedtime, they want their routine, their bottle, their own bed.
     I felt so bad for Kyle, (can I call you Kyle on my blog?) the dad. Kyle was holding the one-year-old and he was fussing and tired and cranky, and I know what that feels like. I've been there. As the parent you want nothing more than to just put the kid on the floor, him to be happy, and you to get to peacefully play the game. Its Adult Interaction, people! With real adults!
     But. I have an idea. Couple A and Couple B will take turns hosting and babysitting. No, not at all like that. How would that work? Like this: Couple A gets a babysitter and leaves their children at home. At bedtime, Couple B put their children to bed. Boom! Doorbell rings. Tada! Its Couple A! Game time! Then, next time, Couple B get the babysitter and Couple A get to host. Am I a genius or what?

Emily lost another tooth last night:

And she wrote a note to the Tooth Fairy:
    DeaR tooth fairy. what is youR name. What dose youR wings have to DO with the moon. 
Ar you Shy?
Love, emiLy


So, I'm not as genius as I once thought. Benjamin is waking up... no snooze for me!

A Sneaky Plan

I went to the Home school Book Store today. It was overwhelming, so I picked a couple of shelves in the used book section and sat down in front of it. When I left, I had a stack of books and a plan.

I've been trying to think of creative ways for Emily and Savannah to work together - particularly if they don't think they are working together, to teach them to interact with each other sweetly. Nicely. Without arguing. For these types of plans to work, they must be sneaky. There must be sufficient motivation for both girls to be interested, without it seeming like a "get-along-sweetly" plan from Mommy.

I found a stack of books, The Magic Treehouse Series, that seemed it would interest both girls. The rules? Emily can't read ahead and she must read the books to Savannah. Emily is a good little reader and Savannah loves to be read to. Plus, it is reading. What better activity?

So why is Savannah frowning? Because she "doesn't like sitting next to her sister." The reading is great. The book is interesting. But sitting next to sister? Oh, no! Hence, the team-building exercise.

I also bought a few readers for Savannah from another reading curriculum then the one that we use. I thought it would be good for her to have something new to read and would give her some extra practice. Turns out, it was an unplanned stroke of genius. Because it is a different curriculum, the books are using words all in the same rule group that we are studying, but they are completely different sets of words. So she gets to practice new words and she is excited about it because they are new books! Go me!

Quick Glances

3 Months Old
     Two weeks ago, Baby Benjamin turned 3 months old. I took pictures that day...

 The Zoo
     We visited the Zoo again early last week. It is nice to have a Membership because we can make many trips for shorter amounts of time. Rather than feel like we must spend all day and see everything.

The Graduation
     Brian graduated with his Master's Degree last weekend. I'm so very proud of him.

The Picnic
     Brian's brother, Josh, graduated with his Bachelor's and his sister, Sarah, graduated from High School at the same time. To celebrate, his mother planned a big picnic at a park. I love how all the cousins have a buddy to play with. Emily is the oldest and the 15th grandchild is due late this year.

The Dust Ruffle
    Dust ruffles are evil. Did you know that? They totally are. Check out what I found when, on a whim, I lifted the edge of one of my sweet daughter's dust ruffle. Gross!

A Visit to the Zoo

We visited the Houston Zoo today. The girls spent the first ten minutes asking to get their faces painted which we finally figured out was actually what they did at the Cairo Zoo.

This may be the first picture of all four of them together... perhaps not. But it is definitely the most recent one.  I like these kids.

Sophie had a blast today. She loved looking at the elephants.... we got to see them eating hay and one of the baby elephants was playing in the water.

 Because we have a membership, we splurged today and let the girls ride the carousel. They loved it.  Did you know that having a membership knocks the carousel price in half? Yes-indeedy. Happy day.

And then we had the mandatory picture with the rhino.  I'm fairly certain we took these pictures last time we were here at the zoo. Savannah has decided that rhinos are her favorite animal. We had this conversation a few days ago. They are her favorite because they have horns and can poke the bad guys. What bad guys she is afraid of, I don't know. But she wants to have him live in the backyard. I'm thinking that's not gonna happen.

7 Quick Takes

7 Quick Takes for today to catch you up on the last couple of weeks...

1.
I just read a blog post from a food blog where every time the woman used the words cream, milk, butter or meat, she also said, parentheses hers, (from grass-fed cows). Every. Single. Time. You can't make this up. At some point, I'm going to write a post about I how I really feel about this.

2.
We visited my parents a couple of weeks ago and happened to be there on my brother's 21st birthday! The girls went outside and drew balloons and confetti all over the driveway for a "surprise party." It was really cute.

3.
We attended a community egg hunt with some friends. I only got to watch Sophie gather eggs, because the kids were segregated by age for the egg hunt. When her bag was full, but there were still many, many eggs on the ground, the lady in charge sent me in for another bag. And I went, 'cause, hello! Free candy!

4.
We also hung out with Brian's family for Easter weekend. Brian's mother put together an egg hunt for the grown-ups... the prizes? Chores and money! She divided up the before and after dinner chores, wrote them on slips of paper and inserted them into some of the eggs. Sadly, my sister-in-law, who typically does the majority of the clean-up, got no money. Karma is not just.

5.
Baby Brother got some pictures taken on Easter. He was nine weeks old!

6.
I think this sums up the egg hunt happiness!

7.
I've tried to post about this several times, but the thoughts and feelings in my head are not coming out as I mean it too. So instead of posting this huge thing with thoughts and feelings and explanations. Here it is:
Savannah was accepted into a charter school for the coming fall. We applied for Emily as well, but there were only 11 spots available for 2nd grade and she was number 203 on the list. Should we decide to follow this path for the school year of 2013, Emily should be accepted because of having a sibling enrolled in the school.